Under the skin: I always hated hospitals
by Radiotowerart
Summary: What do you do when you don't know what you think you know, and you can't trust your own memories


Ok so this is my first story so please try and be nice. I am totaly open to feed back so let me know what you think. and if I should even finish the story. Oh and also I should take this space to say that I don't own Naruto, and of the charicters and all the other things that I'm sapposed to say here 

I always did hate hospitals, he thought. More so when I'm the one in them. Few times in life are we ever more uncomfortable then when we're in a hospital, it doesn't really matter if you're the one in the bed or not. This time however was far more uncomfortable then any before, this time he didn't know what hospital he was in or why he was their. He had not been awake long and had just barely determined that he was in a hospital. Some things are universal when it comes to hospitals. The soft eggshell colored paint on the walls that almost made you as sick as the ailment that had brought you their in the first place. The small end table placed next to the head of the bed. It's surface warn away in perfectly symmetrical rings, that told the story of all the vases filled flowers that had sat on that table and all the people that had lied in that bed. Then of course their were the bandages. He seemed to have quite a few of them wrapped around him. As he looked about the room groggily he was a bit surprised to see no equipment, like one would expect to find. Also their were no cards, no gifts, it was at this point that he spotted a single blooming rose in a tall thin vase sitting on the window sill. At least someone remembered him. Still he wondered who would have left a rose for him.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his door creaking open. Slowly he turned his mind away from thoughts of the rose and the unknown gift giver, and turned his body to face his visitor. His hart sank slightly when he realized it was just his nurse, but at least now he'd get some answers. She was a slender girl with pink hair that she brushed out of her eyes. When she finally realized that he was awake a small smile formed on her face as she walked over to him. "Well" she said in almost a lyrical manner. "It's about time you woke up. You've been out for almost three weeks now." Three weeks! He thought. What had happened, did I get hit by a car, was their a gas leak, and what had I done wrong for karma to have assigned him the teenaged nursing assistant with pink hair? While he was pondering these thoughts the girl had just kept on talking as if they were friends. It was at this point that he figured that he wasn't getting anywhere asking himself these questions, so he might as well ask her. "Excuse me" he interrupted. His voice came through weak and uncertain. "You seem to know me, but I'm afraid I don't know you. Who…Who are you?" Their was a moment of uncomfortable silence passed between them. His nurse slowly stepped back from his bed and raised her head slightly. A quizzical look pasted on her face. She seemed surprised by his question, and in fact, so was he. He wasn't surprised by the question as he was by the voice it had come out in, it wasn't his. It was huskier then his own. He was almost so surprised by this that he almost didn't hear her response. "Of course I know you, it's me Sakura." All of a sudden he was able to place the name and the face, but it was impossible. This girl couldn't be Sakura. Sakura wasn't real. She was a made-up character, the product of a fertile mind, created for the entertainment of others. All the same their she stood, right in front of him. Again his thoughts were interrupted by the girl talking to him. This was begging to become an annoying habit of hers. Interrupting him any time he had any assemblence of a clear thought. She stared at him and repeated herself, this time in a slightly annoyed tone. "Don't you remember me? We've lived down the street from each other our whole lives." Her face grew more concerned. "Maybe I should get the Hokage." Panic creeping into her voice. Her eyes shifting about the room a bit uncertain before returning her gaze to him. The Hokage had warned her that something like this might happen. After all he had barely been alive when anbu had found him among the bodies. He been unresponsive and had remained that way ever sense. "Stay here." She commanded. "I'll be right back." She said as she turned and walked out of the room closing the door behind her. He was again left alone, but this time more confused then ever. It was bad enough before but now he was seeing cartoon characters. The upside he though was, at least he's seeing characters from a show he liked. He was also happy to see that her forehead was nowhere near as big in person as it was on TV. I guess the camera dose add a few inches to a person. Unfortunately for her they were all on her forehead. He chuckled a bit at this thought as he laid his head back down on the pillow. All joking aside he still had one major underlying problem… he was losing his mind.

As she raced down the hall Sakura couldn't help but think of the Hokage's warning to her weeks ago. Her mind flashed back to that day "Sakura, I think it's important that you know that when a person gets lost in their own mind like Jirachi has now, they often wake with some memory lose, if the ever wake at all." These words echoed in her head as harsh now as they had seemed then, She had always known that their might be complications, but it was Jirachi. He had always defied the odds before. He had defied them just by making it back to the village alive. Anbu had reported the rest of his squad dead along with the dignitary they had been assigned to protect. All the others had been slaughtered unmercifully, but he had survived with few physical injuries, relatively speaking. However it seemed that his minds state did not reflect that of his mind.

The silence of the Hokage's office was shattered as a flustered Sakura burst through the door. Tsunade simply looked up from the scrolls she had been looking through. Her eyes fell silently on her young apprentice who only then realized that she had come bursting into the office of the Hokage. That's something that she would have expected out of Naruto. She quickly apologized before explaining the situation. "Please pardon the intrusion Hokage-sama, but Jirachi is awake." Before she could finish her thought, the Hokage interrupted her. "That sounds like good news to me." She said calmly. "Why do you look so distressed?" "Well to tell the truth" Sakura said as she approached the Hokage's desk. "He doesn't seem like himself. He seemed disoriented, and he couldn't remember who I was ether." "Well" the Hokage said as she stood from her desk. "That's to be expected. Most people experience some disorientation or memory loss after being in a coma." She looked at Sakura's anxious face, realizing that she wouldn't relent until she went and checked on him. She let out a long and clearly labored sigh in a subtle acceptance of the situation. "But" She said slowly. "I should probably take a look any way." With these simple words she could see the tense look on her student's face ease. The two headed on their way to try and make some sense of the situation.

Not surprisingly at that same moment he was also trying to make sense of the situation. He tried going over the last things he could remember from before he had woken up, hoping that his memories could provide some sort of clue. Perhaps he had in fact had some kind of accident and was just dreaming all of this. It certainly felt real. More so then any dream he could remember. What if this was real? What if he really was by some miracle or quirk of fait, in Konaha? What was he going to do? As he tried desperately to soul search, and answer the unanswerable, he found that one question more then any other kept coming into his head. Where in the hell were his pants? Nothing serves to make you feel more vulnerable, in a vulnerable situation then not knowing were your pants are. It was at this point that the Hokage entered the room fallowed quickly behind by the pink haired kunoichi, whose nurse's uniform was so crisp that you could practically hear the starch. Before when he had first realized who Sakura was he had been worried that he was going mad, but now that he was face to face with the Hokage his tension eased a bit, now he knew he was crazy. This of course doesn't seem like good news but he looked at it as hitting bottom, he now had nothing to lose and no where to go but up. "So I hear that you seem to be having some trouble with your memory." He thought that in this particular case the Hokage's words were an understatement. "I suppose you could say that." He said in that weak husky voice that was not his own. "I think the bigger issue is that I do remember." "So you know who we are?" Tsunade questioned with a confused tone. "Absolutely, you're the honorable fifth Hokage, Tsunade. And the girl standing behind you is Sakura Haruno." Upon hearing that he did indeed did remember them; Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. Their was a long pause before the Hokage responded. "Then what's the problem?" She asked in an inquisitive tone. "Well" he began hesitantly. "What I remember most about you two is, that nether of you are real." He said unashamedly "You're both fictitious characters." The two kunoichis were left speechless staring at one another and then back to him. After all what is the appropriate response to being told that you don't exists. Tsunade determined that the best way for this conversation to begin moving in a productive direction was to re-establish the boundaries of reality. She walked up beside the head of his bed and placed the index finger of her left hand on his forehead between his brows. Before he could really wonder what she was doing, he began to get the picture. She slowly began pressing down on his forehead with her increasingly beastly strength. At just about the time he became almost certain that her finger was going to bore into his brain, her voice came through very calm, and collected. "I safely assume that you can feel this." Judging by the way he was wincing it was a sure thing, yet she still waited for an answer. "That wasn't a rhetorical statement." She said coldly. "Yes! Yes I can feel that." He blurted out just wanting her to stop. "Well then, have you ever felt pain in a dream? Have you ever heard of people in comas feeling that kind of pain?" This time she didn't wait for a response. She didn't need to. She walked away from his bedside and grabbed a chair and dragged it over to where she had been standing before. He lay their silently, his whole body had broken out in a cold sweat. The Hokage's plan had done it, he was convinced. But in order for this to be true that would have to mean that he didn't really know all that he thought he knew. His entire identity had been shattered. The world he had known was a lie, and the life he had lead was now over. The room remained silent for a long time; Sakura had tried to say something, but had been immediately silenced when she was met by a disapproving look from her mentor. It's not an easy thing to lose all that you've ever had, and the Hokage wanted him to have the time he needed for it to sink in. Given the magnitude of what he had been told, he could react in any number of ways, each as likely as the next, and she didn't want anything her apprentice might say to push him one way or another. As the silence drew out the air grew heavier with the tension. Sakura's inherent sense of compassion was gnawing at her. Their laying no more then ten feet in front of her was one of her friends in pain and she couldn't do so much as offer words of comfort to him. After what seemed like an eternity the silence was broken. "Their statistics." Both women stared at him surprised and confused by his seemingly odd statement. "What?" Sakura muttered almost without realizing it. He slowly began to push himself into a seated position. He looked up at her with sad and wavering eyes. "It's from a quote from Mussolini. One of the only true things he ever said." He took in a raged breath before reciting the quote. "One death is a tragedy, but a million is a statistic." There was another pause as if he was collecting his thoughts. "I've been lying here trying to fathom what that means, but I can't. It's just too big, their just statistics." The Hokage slowly drew in a breath before speaking. "The important part is that you know the truth. As time passes you should regain your memories, and be able to return to active duties. Should you choose to do so. However In the meantime I think it would be best if you were to surround yourself with things that are familiar to you." Her words came out somber and sterile with only the faintest sense of compassion to them. "Pending a few days of observation we're going to send you home to you're family." He nodded silently as she stood up and began to walk toward the door. "For now I think it would be best if you get some rest." She walked out of the room with Sakura fallowing a few steps behind her. Before she could walk out of the room Sakura was stopped by the young mans voice calling to her. She stopped and turned to face him. "Sakura" "Yes" "Would you visit me sometime, and tell me about… well, me." His voice shook with vulnerability. "Of course." She smiled. "Tomorrow after you've gotten some rest." A weight seemed to lift off his shoulders, as he managed a weak smile. "Thanks." With that said she walked out of the room flicking the lights off on her way out. Again he was left alone in the dark as he settled into the bed, he thought to himself this marks the end of his first day of his new life, and he already had a new friend. Not bad.


End file.
